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BUSY DAYS FOR THE COUNCIL — PERMANENT DEFENSE COOPERATION AND MORE … EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is chairing a gathering of defense ministers … EU affairs ministers are discussing how to ensure every country complies with the rule of law … Agriculture ministers will hear about the impact of trade deals on farmers. Foreign affairs ministers set the productivity bar high yesterday: They approved new sanctions on Syrian officials, a compromise on torture goods, and agreed to something called “permanent structured cooperation” on defense.

COUNCIL — SLOVAK PRESIDENCY PROPOSES TO HALVE ERASMUS FUNDING: Governments discussing the EU spending plans up to 2020 have the Erasmus student exchange scheme in their sights. The Commission had proposed a budget of €200 million for the next 3 years, but according to Council documents seen by Playbook, the Slovak suggested allocating just €100 million. The idea is bound to be controversial: alongside plans to end mobile roaming charges, the Erasmus program, which has funded more than three million student exchanges since it started in 1987, is widely regarded as the EU’s most popular initiative. “EU leaders say that youth is a priority. But they do not put their money where their mouth is,” said Allan Päll, Secretary General of the European Youth Forum.

FIRST EU OFFICIAL TO VISIT THE U.S. POST-ELECTION — MOSCOVICI GIVES HARVARD SPEECH:The commissioner from France who has been critical of Trump said: “We need to remain open-minded just as we need to remain vigilant” because for the “losers of globalization” to vote for Trump or other populists is “completely rational.” Moscovici acknowledged that many partners look at Europe today and see a mess, saying the solution lies in “a more political Europe with a stronger Euro-area at its center.” The example provided by the eurozone is that integration is possible, even if all EU countries don’t want to join in. “We need to focus on a smaller group of core countries willing to go forward,” and that would include developing a European Defense Fund, he said, as well as creating “a common European military headquarters.”

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COMMISSIONERS AGENDA HIGHLIGHTS: President Jean-Claude Juncker receives Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French foreign affairs minister, before participating in a “citizen’s dialogue” in Wallonia. Watch out for more off-script comments. Vice President Andrus Ansip receives Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber; Commissioners Bieńkowska and Bulc receive Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus; Commissioner Julian King appears before the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee of the UK’s House of Lords.

PARLIAMENT — MESSERSCHMIDT SPENT €65,000 OF EU FUNDS ON 60,000 PENS: Danish MEP Morten Messerschmidt is also accused of having spent €40,000 on a climate conference in Poland that never took place.

ENERGY — POLITICO HAS DETAILS OF EU’S WINTER ENERGY PACKAGE: Expected on November 30, the plans will include a major overhaul of the EU’s electricity market, new rules for renewables and energy efficiency, a proposed regulation boosting the role of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators and tools to ensure the bloc meets its 2030 energy and climate goals. Details and the Commission documents, for POLITICO Energy Pros.

TRADE — MORE DUTIES APPLIED TO CHINESE STEEL AND IRON: The EU will impose provisional anti-dumping duties from 43 to 81 percent of seamless pipes and tubes of iron and steel from China to “provide EU companies with necessary breathing space”

GERMANY — STEINMEIER FOR PRESIDENT, AFTER ALL? Angela Merkel has paved the way for the German center-left foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to become the next German president, overruling Wolfgang Schäuble’s concerns and pleasing Horst Seehofer who wanted to avoid creating precedence for a CDU- Green candidate taking the post.

The upshot: This appointment can only be seen as a signal towards another grand coalition government in 2017. And it raises the question of whether Martin Schulz will give up efforts to secure a third term as European Parliament President and instead take up the mantle of German opposition leader.

From the liberal left field: Playbook hears we’ll get a decision from liberal lion Guy Verhofstadt on November 29 on whether he will pursue the parliament presidency. If Schulz vacates the field that leaves the EPP trying to claim three of the four top EU jobs, even though they are now outnumbered in the European Council by the liberal ALDE group which has none of the posts. As a former European Council member, Verhoftstadt has a credible claim that a Parliament heavyweight is needed as the EU’s crises pile up.

GERMANY — SEX, DRUGS AND F.A.Z.: German establishment broadsheet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is launching a quarterly magazine Thursday. The new publication, named Frankfurter Allgemeine Quarterly (FAQ), will cost €10 a pop and be edited by Rainer Schmidt with Claudius Seidl. Schmidt was previously editor-in-chief of German Rolling Stone. Among the subjects explored in the first issue? How Silicon Valley is shaping our future – and polyamory.

EUROPEAN POLITICAL PARTIES COULD GET TRUMPED: Tim King argues that an important lesson from the U.S. presidential contest is that political parties matter… politi.co/2fSD1qE

MEANWHILE, IN THE BREXIT CORNER …

Theresa May’s Donald Problem: Former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind tells POLITICO that May has one particular problem for when it comes to her strategy, post-Brexit. “On the free trade issue, she’s going to run right up against Trump’s protectionism.”

Jonathan Faull’s new job — campaigner for British EU officials: According to a memo obtained by POLITICO, the newly retired top British Commission official is pushing the Commission to launch infringement procedures (that’s EU-speak for court-case) against Belgium for misinterpreting EU citizenship law to make it harder for Britons in Belgium to take a second passport.

Brexit also means opting-in: The British government announced yesterday it will ask to join Europol and its new legal framework.

ITALY — RENZI CONFIDENT BUT SEE-SAWING AGAIN ON QUITTING: ‘To scrape by and just float there, that does not suit me,” Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi told an Italian radio station. Not that he thinks it will come to that: “The silent majority of the Italian people is with us,” Renzi said ahead of a constitutional referendum. “Both those people who vote for other parties and those who don’t vote anymore.”

FRANCE — THE PARIS ATTACKS IN PICTURES: Cafébabel republished a series of pictures by the Spanish photographer César Dezfuli, capturing darkness in the City of Light after the attacks last year.

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE LEGISLATIVE DELUGE: A new report from Grayling AcTrend analyzes lawmaking in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia between August 2015 and August 2016 and finds 1,098 acts were approved, including 483 that had a direct impact on business. More information here.

NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM — JOINT MILITARY SHIP PURCHASE: The purchase is for twelve minesweepers and four frigates. The bill for the deal, which is scheduled to be signed late November, comes in at four billion euros.

TURKEY — ERDOGAN PROPOSING AN EU REFERENDUM: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yesterday endorsed the idea of a referendum on EU membership talks. Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini said his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told him the EU “is not popular at the moment” in Turkey and that “Turks feel betrayed.” At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels Monday, Austria’s Sebastian Kurz reiterated his call to stop accession talks with Turkey.

THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW — WITH ANNA-MARIA CORAZZA BILDT MEP …

Playbook sat down with Corazza Bildt, a Swedish center-right MEP, to talk about her work on children’s rights – she co-sponsors a cross-party group on the subject – and we ended up in a conversation about populism and how the two themes connect.

Corazza Bildt is in many ways a European Hillary Clinton, though no-one could accuse her of lacking authenticity. She’s a politician with a background in children’s issues, the spouse of a globally known (former) prime minister, the longest serving civilian at the United Nations during the Balkans wars (she lived in Sarajevo during the siege) as well as a multilingual internet entrepreneur who created three companies.

The problem with politics today: “It is not based on facts anymore, it is based on lies, not data. We need to reset a lot of things.”

How politics works: “Politics only works when the politician is trusted to improve life now and for your children. Politics is about the future, but populism is about the past. That is why I focus on children, even though they are forgotten or seen as a ‘soft’ issue, and (working on) ‘hard’ issues like finance gets you the status.”

European hinterland: “Sarajevo is where I got my European values. You cannot take for granted peace, prosperity. I feel strong in front of populism because I have seen what it leads to – people against people. And violence … Borders never protect you.”

European democracy: “If you want quick, that’s an authoritarian regime. I am proud we are slow because it means we are democratic. But we still have to be functioning.”

Her style: “Equality tackled pragmatically. Feminism with more fun and less ‘ism.’ We are lawmakers and opinion-builders but we are activists as well,” she said, adding: “You get what you see: An entrepreneur who takes risks. I am a total social animal, it’s what I’ve always been.”

On disconnected politics: “If we want to recover trust, we have to be clear about what we do to improve daily life.” An example: “I talk to so many parents about children online. They know their kids live online but they worry.” Dealing with that is “no about reducing freedom of expression, it’s about fighting violence.”

Digital humbling: “I am humbled by the digital revolution. It is faster than politics. We don’t have the solutions anymore. We can provide frameworks and certainty but not the solutions like in the past. Look at the sharing economy: they are solving problems we are not able to solve. We cannot legislate out of fear … We have to be disruptive in the labor market. You can’t solve the migration issues without that.”

Refugee children: “Every step is a tragedy. For children, Europe should mean safety but there are missing children, trafficking, labor exploitation, terrible living conditions.”

What you don’t know about her: “I carry a piece of parmesan cheese in my pocket or bag at all times.”

UNDERSTANDING POPULISM …

Bad service: The new service jobs created since 2008 pay barely half as much as the manufacturing jobs they tended to replace.

Long read: “Shattered” Rebecca Traister on a tour of Hillary Clinton’s imagined coalition in the New-York Magazine.

TRUMPWORLD, WEEK TWO …

Five takeaways from five tumultuous days: Glenn Trush’s thoughts on those last five days, most importantly that Trump is nervous.

Politics is a family business: The president-elect has picked his three children and one son-in-law to be part of his transition team. And a Czech diplomat has publicly backed his former wife Ivana as the new American ambassador in Prague, a position she’s said she would be interested in.

The answer to Kissinger’s question: Donald Trump can call UKIP leader Nigel Farage when he wants to speak to “Europe.” Meanwhile, Breitbart London editor and UKIP activist Raheem Kassam will be waiting by the phone, too, telling BuzzFeed that he’s angling for a job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “The White House will need a special assistant on European affairs, so I will be pushing for that,” he said.

Watch out for an economic sugar high, followed by a crash: The Economy could soar and then crash under Trump. “A stimulative blast that fires up faster growth followed by an inflationary disaster that makes current structural problems much worse and explodes the deficit while sending interest rates soaring,” reports Ben White.

Russia is in the grips of Trump fever: In Moscow, residents are eagerly debating “white America” and the “racial divide” on their evening stroll. politi.co/2fSMrCp

@POTUS: On January 20, as Trump officially takes over the job in the White House, he also takes over the @POTUS Twitter handle reports Business Insider. Obama’s tweets will be archived at @POTUS44.

APPOINTED:Miguel Sagredo has joined the office of Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, replacing Yvon Slingenberg who is now a director of the Commission’s climate department. Antoine Mialhe is moving from the Commission to join FTI Consulting’s health team. Blogger Alice Stollmeyer to the board of EU Observer; Elena Lai is the new Head of Office of Europe Analytica.

LEAVING:Shan Morgan, the U.K.’s widely respected deputy permanent representative, is the latest Brit to leave Brussels, taking up the role of permanent secretary in the Welsh government.

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